Delhiwale: Sadar menu
Seeing a bazar through a gourmand’s gaze.
Gurugram’s Sadar Bazar is a hodgepodge of distractions. One must make a regular pilgrimage to the market for its culinary destinations. Here are three of the very many eateries, using the most popular ingredients. (The photo shows the lunch menu of a popular eatery in the market).
Something with dahi
Here’s the sweet chutney and here’s the sour chutney, and here’s the super-soft deep-fried bhalla soaked in dahi, and everything is topped with shards of crispy papri. This dahi bhalla tastes extremely homey — vendor Mahesh Chandra Sharma makes it fresh every morning. The mobile setup consists of a large pan and bags arranged in various places of his bicycle. The metal pan, holding bhallas and dahi, lies on the back-carrier, while the rest of the stuff is crammed into bags hanging from the handle bar. The best thing: there’s a basket for disposing trash.
Something with chhole
This cart-establishment treats its kulchas with piping hot butter just before serving. It’s also more sophisticated than many other street stalls of such nature in the fact that it serves four different kinds of kulchas—plain, masala, long (because it’s long), and paneer. The chhole is allowed to retain their lightness by the owner-cook Rajesh Gupta, who always asks the customer if they want the dish to be “very spicy, middle spicy or no spice?” Sliced carrots, mango pickles and green chillies serves as his final touch.
Something for digestion
The Dilip Sweets, Supari and Churan street trolley lies decked with spicy, pungent digestives. The various shelves are filled with a great number of tiny bottles and sachets. The cart’s banner boast of selling “sweet, supari, churan,” but it also stocks flavoured candies, mouth-freshening suparis and a wide range of sauf. It pays the biggest attention to its collection of churans—imli laddu, fruit goli, chalu candy, namkeen souf, heeng goli, mixed sauf, barik sauf, zeera goli, khatta goli, pudina goli, amla candy, harad goli. The bullet-sized digestives are arranged thoughtfully. The more colourful orange and black (cola flavoured) goliyan are distributed evenly around the cart, contained within plastic pouches so that their tempting colours are visible to passersby. They are the bestsellers.
